


Eyes Full of Promise

by ClaraxBarton



Series: Lies We Lead [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, First Dates, Kink Negotiation, Kinktober, M/M, Multi, Sex worker Clint Barton, Sort Of, modern Clint Barton, not-Hawkeye Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 11:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Steve hires an escort.





	Eyes Full of Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/gifts).

> So, here it is. The end of the month and the start of a new WIP fic-series.
> 
> Now beta read by the amazing Ro!!!!

* * *

* * *

Steve owned one suit, a simple black affair that he had purchased before moving to DC five weeks ago.

It fit him - not as well as Tony’s tailored clothing, or as poorly as Bruce’s ramshackle two-piece or Natasha’s skin-tight black dress. But, when they had all been ushered into a meeting and photo op with the president, Steve hadn’t felt terribly out of place.

Just… normally out of place.

Putting the suit back on again tonight, straightening the black tie around his neck and smoothing down the white button-up shirt, Steve felt almost a little hysterical.

He hadn’t been able to afford a full suit, before, not for his mother’s funeral. He had worn the old windbreaker that Bucky had given him the year before, had worn Bucky’s hand-me-down shirt and trousers and tie, too. Nothing had fit him, really, because even when Bucky had been Steve’s height, he’d been broader, fuller, more alive.

And now… now, here Steve was seventy years later. 

Bucky was dead, too, now. There was a gravestone at Arlington for him, even. Well. There were two gravestones - one for Steve and one for Bucky. Steve’s was still there, the two of them standing silent and still, alone under a copse of trees. Becca had been the one to arrange it, Steve learned, had bullied Congress into setting aside a part of Arlington for the Howling Commandos future graves, and for Bucky and Steve’s markers. Steve had gone straight there, after meeting with the president, still in the suit he’d never been able to afford before, and he’d stood there for a long time, lost in the past.

But now Steve was, if not striding into the future, stumbling through it, at least. Something.

Wearing a suit that he had bought for himself and meeting a sex worker at an upscale Washington, D.C. hotel.

It was cause, Steve figured, for at least a  _ little _ hysterics. 

The Round Robin bar was, exactly as the name implied, round. Centered in the round room was a round bar counter, and in the middle of that, a round tower of bottles. Above that, a round chandelier.

It reminded Steve of the shield, and wasn’t that an inappropriate thought.

He scanned the room. It was only seven, and on a Tuesday night, but the bar wasn’t empty. There was a couple at the central bar, several men gathered together talking loudly, and a few men and women on their own. 

Steve had to walk the perimeter of the bar to discover seats by the windows, leather wingback chairs with small, dark wooden tables between them. 

And there he was.

Steve had debated, for probably too long, on whether or not to engage the services of a man or a woman. Bucky had been his first, and for all the time Steve spent getting acquainted with the female body while touring the States with the chorus girls, it was Bucky that had felt like home, had felt  _ right, _ and fit against Steve in a way that he hadn’t then, and couldn’t now, put into words. 

So he had gone with a man, but one who looked as little like Bucky as Steve could stand. Pale hair, freckles across his golden skin, tall and lean where Bucky had always been more compact. But the eyes… They weren’t the same, but the photograph Steve had seen on the escort service website had featured such captivating pale blue eyes, familiar yet distinct, that Steve hadn’t been able to look away.

_ Clint _ .

He was sitting there, in one of the leather wingbacks, and Steve didn’t realize until their eyes met that he had been afraid Clint wouldn’t show.

But he was there, dressed in the same kind of nondescript dark suit that seemed to be the uniform of Washington, but he had a lavender shirt on and a dark purple tie, marking him as unique.

Steve approached, and Clint’s gaze found his, held him.

“Hey.” Clint stood up when Steve stopped in front of him, smiled easy and wide, and held out a hand.

“Hi.” Steve shook his hand, stupidly soothed by the feeling of callouses and warmth and firmness.

Clint tugged on his hand just the slightest bit, guiding Steve over to the chair beside his before letting go.

Steve immediately, stupidly, missed his touch.

“So,” Clint was still smiling, still warm even with the foot of space between them, “it’s good to meet you.”

Steve hadn’t made any attempt to disguise himself - there was no point, really. He was in history books and movies and news broadcasts, and his face was more familiar to the world around him than it was to  _ himself _ most days.

“And you,” Steve responded, wondering if Clint was going to make this a  _ thing _ , despite his company’s insistence that discretion was of the utmost importance. There was discretion, Steve supposed, and then there was  _ Captain America _ .

A waiter came over and took their orders, and Steve tried to make himself relax - or at least appear relaxed.

He failed.

Clint reached over, brushed his long fingers over Steve’s wrist.

“How are you settling in?”

It was the kind of innocuous question that people asked each other. You move to a new city, people ask how you find it. 

You wake up in a new century… 

Well.

Steve forced a shrug.

“It’s different than Brooklyn.” Clint’s smile was a little rueful. “All these damn circles.”

Steve found himself surprised into a laugh.

“You’re from Brooklyn?”

“Not originally. Iowa. But I moved there before coming down here.” It was Clint’s turn to shrug, the movement looking more natural than Steve’s but no less forced. “DC isn’t so bad, after you get used to it.”

The waiter returned with their drinks, an Old Fashioned for Clint and a whiskey sour for Steve.

They sipped on them in silence, and Steve found himself letting go of some of his tension as the whiskey warmed his throat and the leather softened against his back.

“The food is good,” Steve offered.

“Mm,” Clint agreed. “There’s this killer Peruvian place - do you like chicken? Spicy things? - you’ve got to try it out sometime.”

Steve had been given so many recommendations, so many lists of ‘musts’, since coming out of the ice.

But this felt different. This wasn’t a ‘welcome to the twenty-first century’ kind of thing. This was Clint offering a fellow Brooklynite a restaurant recommendation.

“Text me the name, I’ll give it a shot.”

Clint’s smile turned into a smirk, and he snagged the cherry from Steve’s drink.

Steve watched, more than a little captivated, as Clint put the cherry between his bright, even white teeth and then licked it into his mouth. He made a small, pleased sound, and set the stem down on a cocktail napkin.

Steve wished he had more cherries for Clint to steal.

“So, I’ve got a few things for you to look over, if you’re feeling like this is something that you’re interested in still?” Clint asked, shifting gear abruptly.

Steve found a phone being held out to him. One of those flat, rectangular things that Tony and Natasha favored.

Gingerly, Steve accepted it.

Clint leaned close, over the arm of his chair, and tapped at the edge of the phone to guide Steve’s attention.

“Our standard NDA for personal trainers,” Clint said, one corner of his smile a little higher than the other.

_ Personal trainer _ .

It was both ridiculous and maybe not so ridiculous, to think that Captain America would hire a personal trainer. That he met at an expensive hotel to ‘train’ with. 

Then again, Steve had looked at the hotel’s website, had seen how well-equipped their gym was.

“I already signed, of course, so everything that’s happened so far - we’re all good. Whether or not you want to move forward,” Clint said, and scrolled down to the bottom of the page to show off his signature. “Go ahead and email that to yourself, so that you’ve got a copy.”

Steve did, fumbling only a little as he typed on the flat screen.

“Awesome. Now, this page - these are the services I can provide.”

There were… a  _ lot _ of services.

“I’m gonna need you to go through and select the things you want, cross off the ones you don’t. You can email that back to me, okay? The things I don’t do are already crossed off.”

There were surprisingly few things crossed off the very - to Steve’s eyes - thorough list.

_ Age play. Boyfriend Experience _ .

He didn’t know what either of those were, but the first he could guess at.

“I’m older than you,” he had to say.

Clint’s lips twitched.

“I know, grandpa, but not… I’m not okay acting like a kid or a baby - no diapers or bottles, you know - and I’m not gonna let you be my ‘Daddy’ in that way.”

“In that way?”

Clint lifted the shoulder closest to Steve.

“Yeah. You want me to be your good boy - or your bad boy - while you spank me and I call you Daddy? That I’m game for.”

Steve swallowed hard. He hadn’t… ever really thought about something like that before.

“And, of course, if you want  _ me _ to be spank you and call you my good boy, I’m down for that too.”

Steve had to remind himself how to breathe.

Clint’s grin turned predatory.

“So, you wanna give that a try, hmm? Wanna be good for me, Steve?”

_ Fucking hell _ . 

“Yes,” Steve groaned.

They shared a charged look, and Steve…

Steve forced himself to look away from Clint’s eyes and back at the list.

“What is… ‘boyfriend experience’?”

Clint huffed a laugh, breath sounding a little unsteady, and that sent a thrill through Steve.

“Going on a date or something, before… our training session. Or as part of it.”

“Oh.” Steve supposed he understood.

Then again…

He glanced around, at the bar they sat in, at the drinks they were sharing.

“First time is different,” Clint said, following his train of thought. “Just talking, like this, sometimes it’s better to do it in a relaxed environment. One that doesn’t have a bed right in front of us.”

Steve could understand that.

“So,” Clint cleared his throat, “look that over, send it back to me before next week? Assuming tonight goes well, for you, and you want a next week.” Clint’s smile was back - not quite cocky, but not exactly shy. “Email that one to yourself.”

Steve did, and Clint pulled up  _ another _ page.

“Monthly STI screening. I’ll send this to you every time I get tested. That said, safety first. The next page is, well, explains what I mean.”

And explain it did.

Condoms for suckjobs?

_ Oral sex _ , the document called it.

“I… I can’t get anything. Or pass on anything,” Steve said.

Clint raised his eyebrows.

“It’s part of the, whole thing.”

“They tested your ability to catch and pass on syphilis?” Clint asked.

Steve blushed.

“No, not- not like they. In a lab.”

“They made you fuck in a lab, Steve?”

He glared at Clint, but Clint was still grinning.

“Samples of my blood and tissue and semen, Clint.”

Clint’s grin remained.

“Good to know. You, uh, you mind providing some evidence of that? We can negotiate some of this stuff, but some of it is a hard-no for me.”

Steve’s confusion must have shown.

“Non-negotiable,” Clint explained without Steve having to ask. “Like those two things from the services list. You can have hard-nos and soft-nos. Soft-nos are things you  _ might _ want to consider, down the line, if this works out. Or if you change your mind.”

“Hard-nos can’t change?”

“Anything can change, Steve. Hell, in the middle of a session, if something becomes a soft-no or a hard-no, you say so and it stops.”

“What about the other way around?”

“Nope. You decide you want to give a hard-no a chance, we talk about it  _ after _ and plan for it the next time. Safety first isn’t just about condoms.”

Steve nodded.

There was something about the way Clint laid everything out - not quite clinical, but still very bluntly - that Steve appreciated.

Without Clint prompting, Steve emailed those two pages to himself.

“Good,” Clint all but purred.

Steve felt like melting into his chair, and it must have shown.

Clint chuckled, soft and warm.

“Let’s finish our drinks, and then we can go to our room, if you want. Nothing too hardcore tonight. Just getting to know each other. I’ll make sure it’s good for you.”

Steve licked his lips.

“I want to make sure it’s good for  _ you _ ,” he said, hoping Clint would catch on to his meaning.

Clint’s sharp, pale blue eyes caught and held his.

“You will,” he said, and it sounded… it sounded like a command.

“Thank you,” Steve sighed.

Clint caught his hand, rubbed his thumb over Steve’s palm and gave a gentle squeeze.

Steve let himself sink into the feeling of that, of someone touching him, holding him. 

It felt like the first time in forever that he’d been able to trust himself in someone else’s hands, and he was too damn greedy not to want to savor every second of it.

So he did.

-o-

  
  
  
  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] Eyes Full of Promise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26085391) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)


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